I’m sure the last thing you want to hear today is a story about a funeral, and in fact I’m not going to tell it right now. That story deserves a separate space of its own. Enough to say this: To be trusted with this song for this family of this girl was a rare privilege.

I learned “Let It Be” for them. In the thirty-or-so times that my husband & I practiced it, that song became a spacious, comforting, quiet space for me to dwell in, too—a space where I could ponder some things troubling me.

So I wanted to share it with you, too, because maybe you, too, are having a day of grief.

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LET IT BE

Maybe your grief today is the same as mine: Being gravely worried for the human family the morning after a shocking election. (It surprised me to find that I experienced this election primarily as a mother. Last night, my heaviest thoughts were How will I talk to my son about this?How many children and families are going to suffer because of this?)

But maybe that’s not your sadness today. Whatever your particular hour of darkness at the moment, I’m posting this one for you. May love hover over you. XOXOXO

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least
fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful.